I woke with the alarm. I rubbed tired eyes and dragged myself up from the sleep mat. I stepped to the toilet, relieving myself to the low hum of the hab’s air-vent, triggered when I switched on the bathroom light.
I think I groaned out loud as I woke. I’ve started to notice that I do that when I’m feeling particularly tired. Ah half-gasp, an expression of frustration, and something of a grunt, too. Ugh; day.
Ahead of me, I knew that the morning would involve the trek to work – it’s cold outside, and I’m feeling lazy, so via transit, not bike – then a day of mind-numbing boredom as I worked through one long document.
It’s urgent. It needs to be completed. I’m tired.
I don’t need to be in the office to do this document, so I took the executive decision to work from home. I’d remote into the network and do what needed to be done, in there. Yeah, okay.
I fired off a message to let my colleagues know, and went back to bed.
Work starts at 0900. I set the alarm to 0850. I soon fell back to something between full sleep and a faded state of consciousness.
By 0900 I was slouched in front of the terminal, a fresh caf steaming in my hand. Screen alive and network connection achieved, I slowly went about my day’s tasks.
I didn’t shower until midday. Light rations and caf saw me through the morning. My terminal is fitted with three screens. One was given to the document, one was fielding messages – mostly ignored unless they were urgent – and on another I switched on a stim show, letting it carousel through episodes, one after the other. Sometimes I paused it to let the voice assistant play some music, but mostly it was left to the stim to fill the hab with noise and life.
Somewhere in the late afternoon, I ventured out for a while. I stretched my legs and climbed a local hill, passed parents as they picked up children from the local education camp. They life a different life, on a different schedule. I grabbed up some snacks from a store and returned to the hab. Grease and sugar to see me through the next few hours.
By 1700 I was done, winding up the document at the same time as I wound up the traditional work day. Well timed. I fired a copy off to the recipient that needed it, and kicked out, rolling my chair across the smooth floor of the hab. I switched on a spotlight over my craft desk.
With another kick I rolled back, shut down the work-interface, but leaving the stim streaming on the other screen. I grinned to myself in child-like fun at rolling around the hab, but did, finally stand up and change to a seat at the craft desk.
As the sun dropped through the sky, I worked on my hobby. As night gathered, and the block’s other residents could be heard returning from their day, I worked on my hobby. Between the background noise of the stim, and the thuds or half-heard conversations in habs around me, I worked on my hobby.
I paused, once, for some more rations, but that was about it. The bathroom stayed damp all day, I never properly aired it out. The mug of caf kept getting refilled, a ring of past servings slowly formed near the lip.
I noticed a spot at the edge of my mouth, later in the evening. A minor agitation that had been becoming more felt during the day. Not sure it it is something seasonal – the cold weather on sensitive skin – but I’ve noticed a patch of red around my lips that has coincided with an increase in spots. Maybe I ought to check in with the local doc. Get some cream or something.
Around midnight I returned to bed. Happy that I hit my work target, happy that I spent time on my hobby. Happy that I didn’t have to commute.
I didn’t chat to anyone all day, but I’m not really fussed about that. This was just another day passed; one person, one dot, one light – one of the many that shines in a city, every night.
Cyber Noir 2020 